Posts Tagged ‘solar’

According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, Georgia is one of the top 10 solar states. There are 170,000 homes powered by solar and there are 3,924 solar jobs in the state, but how can we make solar power and energy efficiency more accessible?

Cliff Valley School covered its gymnasium roof with solar panels in August, completing the largest solar project undertaken by an Atlanta area school. With a capacity of 62.56 kW, the school expects to meet up to one third of its energy needs via solar power by the end of 2017.

Brighter days are ahead for the Len Foote Hike Inn, an environmentally sustainable wilderness lodge in the North Georgia mountains, thanks to a newly installed 53.72 kW solar photovoltaic array. The “Above the Grid” solar project supplies nearly 70 percent of the inn’s electricity needs and will educate thousands of guests annually about the value of sustainable environmental practices.

When Southface started building a database to track Georgia’s installed solar capacity in 2012, we were hunting for kilowatts (kWs). Four years later, GeorgiaEnergyData.org shows that we have more than 1,100 MW of installed solar capacity.

Shan Arora, policy programs manager here at Southface, recently spoke with the Natural Resources Defense Council about his thoughts on distributed generation and how the South can gain the most from its mounting desire for energy independence.

Note from Dennis Creech, Southface co-founder. Dear Southface Community, The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970 changed the public’s perception of the environment. However, while the production and use of energy was a major driver behind many of the serious global and local environmental challenges of the day, few in the environmental community worked…